PR and reputation blog written by Jonathan Welsh, an award-winning PR expert based in Manchester and working nationally and internationally. Former MP's assistant, senior director at a global PR firm, and married father of two.

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Today's BBC cuts, ironically leaked last week in The Times, are remarkable only in that the Corporation has chosen some of its lowest audience but most diverse areas to close.

The Asian network, BBC Switch and 6 music all arguably dared to try something different. The lesson it seems, is that whilst the BBC may want to stop its expansion, it doesn't want to lose its audience share.

That is the dicotomy of a tax payer funded public service broadcaster in 2010 and that's why the licence fee can't survive forever.

It will, however, increase the pressure to restrict BBC online content further and thus open up the competition in the market. This can only be good for a pluralistic democracy but only if other media outlets can finally adapt to a new media age and offer the sort of online content people will be willing to pay for.

The BBC didn't force the rest of the media to fail so miserably at this and it didn't force them to give away their content for free.

Let's see if the BBC backing down (or at least starting to) will signal the beginning of a media resurgence starting with successful pay walls...